Home-Courts, 5-sets, & the MPSF
A quick look at some numbers around the power of home courts, who wins 5-set matches, and the dominance of MPSF.
I want to revisit a few numbers to prepare for the busy weekend. Let's start with home-court advantage. True home teams have won just over 76% of their matches this season. This is significantly higher than the 62% win percentage that home teams had last season. I would expect this to revert to the low 60s in conference play. In the meantime, home teams are thriving.
Yesterday, I talked about sets in a match. Today, I want to look specifically at 5-set matches this season. Of the 16 matches that have gone all the way to five, 3 were played on neutral courts. For the remaining 13, 8 have been won by the home team. This is 62%, which is in line with the usual home-court winning percentage. Interestingly, last season, home teams only won 52% of their matches that went to five sets. I will check on this later in the season to see how 5-set home teams are faring.
Last, the MPSF is still the conference to beat early in the season. Combined, the MPSF is 25-1. The conference with the next closest wins is the MIVA with 16. Incidentally, one of those wins was against the MPSF. The ECC has the next fewest losses with 4, but they have only played 4 matches in total. The season is still young, but the MPSF is showing that they are competitive, top to bottom.
What numbers are you interested in this season? Let me know and maybe I will be able to look into it.
Match Recaps
Non-conference
Long Beach (96%) def. Merrimack (4%)
3-0 (25-13, 25-16, 25-16)
UC Irvine (90%) def. McKendree (10%)
3-0 (25-17, 25-19, 25-16)
Queens (83%) def. Lees-McRae (17%)
3-1 (25-10, 25-22, 24-26, 25-18)
Fairleigh Dickinson (62%) def. Roberts Wesleyan (38%)
3-0 (25-16, 25-20, 25-18)
Quincy (38%) def. Central State (62%)
3-0 (25-13, 25-13, 25-13)
Match Projections
Non-conference
Tusculum (14%) vs King (86%)
Mount Olive (32%) vs Queens (68%)
Fairleigh Dickinson (69%) vs Roberts Wesleyan (31%)
Long Island (93%) vs St. Thomas Aquinas (7%)
Maryville (60%) vs Illinois Tech (40%)
There will probably be a few more neutral events in the future. As the sport grows, more programs will probably like to minimize travel which could lower costs.
Thank you for your posts, TJ. Love the fact-based analysis...
One trend I'dl ike to see explored is this: How often does the team that wins the first set go on to win the match?
Also, I have my version of Lawler's Law (former LA Clipoers announcer Ralph Lawler) who always stated the first team to 100 usually wins...Miggy's Law is this: The first team to 20 usually wins. Can this be proven?